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HOW    THE    BISHOP    BUILT    HIS 
COLLEGE    IN  THE  WOODS 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

URBANA 


Bishop  Built 
His  College 
In 

The 
Woods 


John 
James 
Piatt 


The  Western  Literary  Press.Cincinnati. 


Copyright  1906  by  John  James  Piatt. 


Printed  by  W.  E.  Taylor, 

HAKRISON,  O. 


m  % 


s 


This  Little  Book 
tells  the  story  of  a  really  heroic 
episode  in  the  history  of  education: 
that  of  the  founding  of  Kenyon 
College  at  Gambier  by  The  Right 
*  1  Reverend  Philander  Chase,  D.  D., 
the  first  Bishop  of  Ohio. 

j 


^ 


I  159816 


HOW    THE    BISHOP    BUILT    HIS 
COLLEGE    IN  THE  WOODS 


THE    PIONEER    BISHOPRIC    AND    FARM-HOUSE 
SEMINARY 

VV^ORTHINGTON,  on  the  Olen- 
tangy,  five  or  six  miles  north 
of  Columbus,  is  one  of  the  oldest  and 
most  venerable  towns  in  Ohio.  It 
was  founded  in  1803,  by  Colonel  (also 
the  Reverend)  James  Kilbourne,  of 
Connecticut.  When  I  last  visited 
the  place,  many  years  ago,  a  large 
two-storied  brick  building,  noisy  with 
a  public  school,  was  pointed  out, 
across  the  public  square,  as  that  in 
which  the  Rev.  Philander  Chase  con- 
7 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

ducted  an  academy,  after  he  first 
made  his  home  at  Worthington  in 
1817.  This  was  one  of  several  houses 
built  about  the  year  1808,  and  stands 
a  little  north  of  St.  John's  Church, 
doubtless  one  of  the  first  church- 
buildings  of  any  pretentions  erected 
for  the  use  of  the  Episcopal  Church 
west  of  the  Allegheny  mountains. 

Those  who  have  read  Bishop 
Chase's  autobiography  will  recall  the 
story  of  his  coming  to  Ohio,  as  told 
in  that  work.  He  came  as  a  mission- 
ary, leaving  his  family  to  follow  him, 
and  made  the  journey  from  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  (where  he  gave  up  a 
pleasant  home  and  associations  for 
the  hardships  and  privations  of  a 
new  country)  during  the  winter  of 
1816-17.  From  Buffalo  (then  a  small 
village)  westward  was  an  almost  un- 
broken wilderness.  On  the  southern 
shore  of  Lake  Erie  no  line  of  public 
travel  had  yet  been  established,  and 
8 


BISHOP   CHASE 


LitMoKV 

UNIVEKSIIY  Uh  ILLINOIS 
URBANA 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

the  small  lake  vessels  were  the  only 
means  of  common  conveyance.  But, 
when  Mr.  Chase  reached  Buffalo  by 
stage  coach  from  Canandaigua,  weeks 
would  have  yet  to  pass  before  the 
opening  of  navigation,  and  the  pros- 
pect of  delay  was  insupportable  to  a 
man  of  his  eager  disposition.  Private 
travel  upon  the  ice  of  Lake  Erie  was 
still  kept  up,  but  as  the  season  was 
far  advanced,  this  had  begun  to  be 
looked  upon  as  dangerous.  While 
inquiring,  however,  as  to  the  means 
of  going  forward,  he  happened  to 
see,  as  he  tells  us,  "a  man  standing 
upright  in  his  sled,  with  the  horses' 
heads  facing  the  lake."  Here  was 
the  moment's  opportunity,  and  he 
took  it.  He  learned  that  the  man 
was  going  twelve  miles  up  the  lake, 
and  at  once  engaged  to  go  with  him 
that  distance,  trusting  to  Providence 
for  further  progress.  As  Mr.  Chase 
seated  himself,  with  trunk  and  port- 
9 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

manteau,  in  the  farmer's  sled,  a  gen- 
tleman named  Hibbard,  with  port- 
manteau in  hand,  begged  the  same 
privilege.  At  the  end  of  the  twelve 
miles  they  were  so  fortunate  as  to 
find  another  man  who  promised  to 
take  them  twenty-five  miles  further 
to  Cattaraugus  Creek,  and  this  dis- 
tance was  passed  over  before  night. 
Here,  however,  they  found  neither 
house  nor  shelter,  but  for  an  extra 
payment  they  prevailed  upon  the 
same  person  to  carry  them  to  a 
house  known  as  Mack's  Tavern, 
where  they  hired  a  horse  and  cutter 
to  take  them  to  the  Four  Corners,  a 
place  within  twenty-five  miles  of  the 
Pennsylvania  State  line.  Mr.  Chase's 
description  of  this  part  of  his  jour- 
ney is  graphic  and  striking.  He 
says  in  his  autobiography:  "It  was 
sunrise  ere  we  set  off.  In  getting 
out  upon  the  lake,  we  had  to  pass 
between  several  mounds  of  ice,  and 
10 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  TEE  WOODS 

sometimes  to  climb  over  large  cakes, 
which  had  been  thrown  up  together 
by  the  force  of  the  winds  and  waves. 
But  the  driver  knew  his  way,  and 
our  horse  was  rough-shod,  and  the 
cutter  was  strong  and  well  built. 
The  scene  before  us,  as  we  came  out 
from  among  the  mounds  of  ice,  was 
exceedingly  brilliant,  and  even  sub- 
lime. Before  us,  up  the  lake,  was  a 
level  expanse  of  glassy  ice,  from  two 
to  three  miles  wide,  between  two 
ranges  of  ice-mountains,  all  stretch- 
ing parallel  with  the  lake  shore  and 
with  one  another,  as  far  as  the  eye 
could  extend,  till  they  were  lost  in 
the  distance.  On  this  expanse  and 
on  these  mountains,  on  the  icicles, 
which  hung  in  vast  quantities  and  in 
an  infinite  variety  of  shapes  from 
the  rocky,  lofty  and  sharp-angled 
shore  on  the  left,  the  rising  sun  was 
pouring  his  beams.  Light  and  shade 
were  so  distinct,  brilliancy  and  dark- 
11 


HOW  TEE  BISHOP  BUILT 

ness  were  in  such  proximity,  and  yet 
so  blended,  as  to  produce  an  effect  of 
admiration  and  praise  to  the  great 
Creator  never  before  experienced. 
It  would  be  in  vain  to  express  them 
here.  What  added  to  the  adoring 
gratitude  to  God,  for  having  made 
all  things  with  such  consummate 
skill  and  splendor,  was  what  ap- 
peared as  we  rode  along  between 
these  mountains  of  ice,  manifesting 
God's  providential  goodness,  which 
went  hand  in  hand  with  His  power 
and  wisdom.  The  bald-headed  eagles 
sat  on  these  mountains  of  ice,  with 
each  a  fish  in  his  claw,  fresh  and 
clean,  as  if  just  taken  from  the  limpid 
lake.  What  noble  birds!  How  deli- 
cious their  repast!  ' Whence  do  they 
obtain  these  fish  at  this  inclement 
season?'  said  the  writer.  'They  get 
them/  said  the  driver,  'from  the  top 
of  the  ice.  These  were  thrown  up 
and  deposited  by  the  winds  and 
12 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

waves  in  the  storms  of  last  winter, 
and  being  immediately  frozen,  have 
been  kept  till  this  spring,  when 
the  sun  thaws  them  out  for  the 
eagles  and  ravens,  which,  at  this  sea- 
son, have  nothing  else  to  feed  on/ 
As  the  driver  told  this  simple  story 
of  the  fish,  and  the  storms  and  the 
eagles,  how  clearly  appeared  the 
providential  goodness  of  God.  'And 
will  not  He  who  f  eedeth  the  eagles 
and  the  ravens,  which  He  hath  made 
to  depend  on  His  goodness,  feed  and 
support  and  bless  a  poor,  defenseless, 
solitary  missionary,  who  goeth  forth, 
depending  on  His  mercy,  to  preach 
His  Holy  Word,  and  to  build  up  His 
Church  in  the  wilderness?'  There 
was  an  answer  of  faith  to  this  ques- 
tion more  consoling  than  if  the 
wealth  of  the  Indies  had  been  laid 
at  his  feet." 

After  some  further  experiences  on 
the  ice,  the  travelers  reached  Con- 
13 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

neaut  Creek  (now  Salem),  Ohio, 
whence  Mr.  Chase  made  the  rest  of 
his  journey  alone,  chiefly  on  horse- 
back— preaching  wherever  he  found 
scattered  members  of  his  Church  on 
the  road — reaching  Worthington 
early  in  May,  where  he  at  once 
wrote  to  his  wife,  directing  her  to 
meet  him  at  Cleveland,  then  a  small 
village,  in  the  middle  of  June. 

Mr.  Chase  was  elected  Bishop  of 
of  Ohio  in  June  of  the  following  year 
(1818),  and  consecrated  at  Philadel- 
phia on  the  eleventh  of  February, 
1819.  He  had  meanwhile  settled  at 
Worthington,  purchasing  several  lots 
fronting  upon  the  public  square,  and 
a  farm  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
acres,  half  a  mile  below,  on  the  Co- 
lumbus road — the  old  Sandusky  pike 
— where  he  made  his  home.  With 
the  exception  of  about  two  years 
spent  in  Cincinnati  as  President  of 
the  Cincinnati  College,  and  a  year's 
14 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

absence  in  England,  Bishop  Chase 
continued  to  reside  upon  this  farm 
until  the  year  1828,  and  his  farm- 
house, for  two  years  after  the  incor- 
poration of  that  institution,  was  to 


THE  FIRST  BISHOP'S   PALACE  IN   OHIO 


all  intents  and  purposes  Kenyon  Col- 
lege— it  having  been  at  first  de- 
signed, according  to  the  arrange- 
ment made  with  the  beneficiaries  in 
England,  to  establish  the  college  up- 
on the  Bishop's  Worthington  farm. 
15 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

The  life  of  an  Ohio  Bishop  in  those 
early  days  was  not  what  would  now 
be  thought  an  enviable  one.  During 
the  year  1820,  Bishop  Chase,  in  vis- 
iting the  infant  parishes  of  his  dio- 
cese, traveled  on  horseback  twelve 
hundred  and  seventy-one  miles.  His 
services  were  meanwhile  for  the 
most  part  their  own  and  only  re- 
ward; his  farm  was  almost  his  sole 
support.  In  the  autumn  of  the 
above  year,  on  returning  home,  he 
used  his  last  dollar  to  pay  a  man 
hired  to  attend  his  farm,  and  as  he 
had  nothing  to  pay  future  wages,  he 
was  compelled  to  take  the  care  of 
the  place  into  his  own  hands — that  is, 
as  he  states  it,  /'thrash  the  grain, 
haul  and  cut  the  wood,  build  the 
fires  and  feed  the  stock;  all  this 
work  he  did  besides  the  care  of  the 
churches.  The  whole  was  deemed  a 
part  of  the  Christian  warfare  from 
which  there  was  no  discharge."  In 
16 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

connection  with  this  period  an  inter- 
esting incident  is  related.  One  even- 
ing (and  this  was  two  years  before 
the  first  thought  of  going  to  England 
occurred  to  him),  having  been  at 
work  all  day  on  his  farm,  he  wrote  a 
letter  to  a  friend  in  the  East — Rev. 
Dr.  Jarvis,  of  Boston — in  answer  to 
one  of  inquiry  regarding  the  con- 
dition of  the  Church  in  Ohio.  This 
letter  (wherein,  although  with  some 
hesitation,  he  made  a  plain  statement 
of  his  discouragements)  became  a  lit- 
tle marked  with  blood  from  a  fresh 
cut  in  the  Bishop's  hand,  for  which 
he  apologized  by  saying  he  had  just 
come  in  from  his  farm-work  to  write 
it.  This  friend  afterward,  in  answer 
to  inquiries  from  one  of  the  Scottish 
Bishops,  named  McFarlane,  respect- 
ing the  condition  of  the  Church  in 
America,  forwarded  with  his  own, 
to  explain  affairs  in  Ohio,  Bishop 
Chase's  letter  just  as  it  had  come 
17 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

from  the  latter's  hands.  The  daugh- 
ter of  this  Scottish  Bishop  (Miss  Duff 
McFarlane)  was  then  in  England,  at 
the  death-bed  of  a  gentleman  named 
John  Bowdler,  when  she  received  a 
letter  from  her  father,  enclosing  that 
written  by  Bishop  Chase.  She  read 
the  letter  to  the  dying  man,  and  was 
directed  by  him  to  take  from  his 
drawer  a  purse  containing  ten  guin- 
eas, and  by  the  first  convenient  op- 
portunity send  it  to  the  Ohio  Bishop. 
When  the  latter  was  in  England  he 
was  invited  to  breakfast  at  the  home 
of  one  of  Miss  McFarlane's  relatives, 
on  which  occasion  he  was  astonished 
to  see  that  lady  produce  his  blood- 
marked  Worthington  letter,  inquir- 
ing if  he  were  its  author,  and  then 
hand  him  the  ten  guineas  which  it 
had  won  from  a  dying  man. 

Another  of  many  interesting  inci- 
dents associated  with  Bishop  Chase's 
residence  at  Worthington,  was  his 
18 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

act  in  freeing  a  negro  bought  by  him 
many  years  previous  (in  1808),  while 
stationed  at  New  Orleans.  This 
negro,  Jack,  was  purchased  for  five 
hundred  dollars  as  a  house  servant, 
but,  after  five  months'  service,  ran 
away  and  went,  as  was  supposed,  to 
England.  Bishop  Chase  had  long 
endeavored  to  forget  his  loss,  when, 
some  years  after  settling  at  Worth- 
ington,  he  received  a  letter  from  a 
friend  at  New  Orleans,  telling  him 
of  the  negro's  return,  arrest,  identi- 
fication, and  imprisonment,  and  say- 
ing that  he  now  awaited  the  arrival 
of  the  legal  powers,  to  be  sold  for 
the  benefit  of  his  master.  "This 
news,"  writes  the  Bishop,  "put  a  new 
face  on  an  old  picture,  every  feature 
of  which  the  writer  had  been  en- 
deavoring to  forget  for  eleven  years. 
And  now  he  had  reasons,  peculiar  to 
his  condition,  for  dismissing  it  en- 
tirely from  his  mind;  for  although 
19 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

his  once  owning  the  slave  Jack,  like 
that  of  Philemon  and  other  primitive 
Christians,  was  the  result  of  provi- 
dential necessity;  and  although  Jack, 
like  Onesimus,  might  be  considered 
morally  bound  to  return  to  his  mas- 
ter, yet  now,  under  present  circum- 
stances, if  his  master  were  to  reclaim 
and  sell  him  for  money,  his  whole 
diocese  would  attribute  it  to  a  prin- 
ciple of  covetousness,  the  great  idol 
which,  at  the  present  day,  all  are  so 
much  inclined  to  worship,  and  thus 
his  usefulness  in  Ohio  would  be  de- 
stroyed forever.  And  though  this 
tyrant — the  love  of  money — rules 
over  the  hearts  of  so  many,  yet  all 
are  very  jealous  of  the  affections  of 
the  clergy  in  this  respect,  and  fain 
would  starve  their  bodies  to  save 
their  souls.  The  writer  saw,  or 
thought  he  saw,  it  would  be  so  here; 
for  though  his  diocese  gave  him 
nothing  to  live  on,  yet  were  he  to  re- 
20 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  W00D8 

claim  his  servant  Jack,  or  even  to 
sue  for  the  money  which  the  New 
Orleans  Church  owed  him,  and  which 
they  have  since,  in  1840,  so  honor- 
ably paid  him  (fifteen  hundred  dol- 
lars), all  would  have  fallen  on  his  char- 
acter without  mercy,  and  he  would 
have  labored  among  them  in  vain. 
Therefore,  with  a  full  determination 
to  bury  the  whole  matter  in  oblivion, 
he  wrote  to  his  friends  to  emancipate 
his  servant  Jack,  and  let  him  go 
whithersoever  he  pleased;  that  if  he 
would  pay  his  prison  fees  and  other 
costs  of  suit,  it  would  be  all  his  mas- 
ter wanted."  This  emancipation 
act,  was  apparently  the  result,  cer- 
tainly, of  a  pretty  strong  chain  of 
logic,  and  perhaps,  privately,  the 
good  Bishop  did  not  credit  himself 
with  any  special  liberality  in  conse- 
quence. He  adds,  however,  in  mak- 
ing the  record:  "And  why,  the  reader 
will  ask,  has  this  grave  of  oblivion 
21 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

been  disturbed  here?  Why  not  suf- 
fer Jack  to  rest  in  his  quiet  bed? 
The  answer  is,  because  there  was 
more  in  this  than  appears.  Jack  be- 
comes hereafter,  in  this  history  of  the 
writer's  life,  an  important  person- 
age, and  proves,  however  insignifi- 
cant in  himself,  to  be  one  instrument 
among  many  of  the  means,  in  the 
hand  of  Providence,  of  rescuing  the 
writer  from  great  distress  in  London, 
and,  by  consequence,  of  enabling  him 
to  found  an  institution,  now  the 
ornament  of  the  West."  This,  of 
course,  was  Kenyon  College.  But  I 
shall  explain  the  negro's  providen- 
tial influence  in  another  place. 

Returning  from  Worthington  to 
Columbus,  I  passed  the  Bishop's  old 
farm,  about  half  a  mile  south  of  the 
little  town.  The  farm-house,  a  low, 
two-storied  frame,  stands  about  a 
hundred  and  fifty  yards  back  from 
the  Columbus  turnpike,  directly  east 
22 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

from  the  first  toll-gate,  with  a  fine 
old  apple  orchard  between  it  and  the 
public  road.  After  the  incorpora- 
tion of  Kenyon  College,  and  its  first 
beginning  there,  a  few  additional 
log  buildings  for  temporary  use  were 
erected.  These  have  long  since 
passed  away. 

It  was  at  this  old  farm-house  that 
the  late  Salmon  P.  Chase,  Chief  Jus- 
tice of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  studied  under  the  direction  of 
his  uncle,  the  Bishop,  preparatory  to 
entering  Dartmouth  College;  and  at 
about  the  same  time  a  son  of  Henry 
Clay,  the  great  Kentucky  statesman, 
(who  was  helpful  toward  Bishop 
Chase's  success  in  enlisting  sympathy 
for  his  purpose  in  England)  was  also 
a  pupil  in  the  farm-house  seminary. 
This  last  fact  I  mention  to  account 
for  Mr.  Clay's  personal  interest  in 
the  foundation  of  Kenyon  College. 


23 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

II. 
KENYON  COLLEGE. 

(TRAY'S  "Ode  on  a  Distant  Pros- 
^■^  pect  of  Eton  College"  has  not 
the  universal  sentiment  of  the  "Elegy 
Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard," 
but  it  expresses  as  no  other  poem,  I 
believe,  has  ever  yet  expressed  so 
well,  the  feeling  one  has  in  revisiting 
the  scenes  of  school-boy  experience, 
after  long  absence  and  the  world 
have  intervened — when  he  finds  him- 
self, a  boy's  ghost,  in  the  midst  of 
posterity.  And  when,  approaching 
Gambier,  upon  the  Mount  Vernon 
road  (Gambier  is  five  miles  eastward 
from  Mount  Vernon,  Ohio),  the  dusky 
steeple  of  Kenyon  College  was  seen 
far  off  among  the  tree-tops,  I  found 
myself  repeating  almost  unconscious- 
ly— deposing  meanwhile  the  long  de- 
24 


itiUiS 


URBAN A 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

parted  "Henry"  (Henry  the  Sixth 
was  the  founder  of  Eton)  in  the 
fourth  line,  and  substituting  the 
name  of  Bishop  Chase, — the  first 
verses  of  that  poem: 

"Ye  distant  spires,  ye  antique  towers, 
That  crown  the  watery  glade, 

Where  grateful  Science  still  adores 
Her  Chase's  holy  shade, " — 

although,  if  a  statement  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  William  Sparrow,  one  of  the 
early  Professors  of  Kenyon,  is  to  be 
received,  Science  had  not,  perhaps, 
the  most  assured  reason  for  grati- 
tude in  this  case.  Professor  Spar- 
row wrote,  that  Bishop  Chase,  upon 
one  occasion,  when  the  propriety  of 
getting  philosophical  and  scientific 
apparatus  was  urged  by  a  Kentucky 
gentleman  who  had  two  sons  in  the 
college,  answered  somewhat  emphat- 
ically that  Science  was  not  the  object 
of  the  institution.  And  certainly 
Science  was  not  an  original  object  in 
25 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

the  foundation  of  Kenyon  College; 
it  was  Religion — the  college  as  a  sec- 
ular institution  was  an  after-thought 
and  secondary.  Science,  to  be  ad- 
mitted, must  minister  to  Religion. 

Five  years  after  his  consecration, 
Bishop  Chase  found  himself  in  a  dio- 
cese which  was  as  yet  a  wide  wilder- 
ness, with  but  five  or  six  clergy  in 
all;  and,  after  an  appeal  to  the  East- 
ern Church  for  Episcopal  mission- 
aries, failed  to  have  his  hands  lifted 
up  and  strengthened.  He  was  dis- 
heartened. The  graduates  of  East- 
ern colleges  and  of  the  General 
Episcopal  Theological  Seminary,  at 
New  York,  did  not  indicate  any  dis- 
position, while  they  could  have  good 
livings  and  pleasant  churches  near 
home,  to  venture  into  wild  lands, 
and  few  young  men  could  be  sent 
from  the  struggling  West  to  the 
East  for  education  as  ministers;  the 
few  who  went  were  also,  it  appears, 
26 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

disposed  to  remain.  There  seemed 
little  hope  to  the  first  Western 
Bishop,  zealous  for  the  Church,  when 
one  of  his  addresses  to  the  Ohio 
Convention  of  six  presbyters  and 
deacons  was  noticed  favorably  in  a 
prominent  British  Church  organ. 
This  circumstance,  to  which  his  at- 
tention was  called  by  his  son,  also 
named  Philander*  (who  had  previous- 
ly been  a  teacher  in  the  Worthington 
seminary,  but  was  recently  ordained 
a  minister,  and  was  soon  to  die  of  a 
consumption  with  which  he  was  then 
ill),  at  once  suggested  to  him  the 
feasibility  of  a  Theological  Seminary 
in  Ohio,  for  the  education  of  a  min- 
istry to  the  manor  born,  and  also  a 
personal  mission  to  England  for  the 
purpose  of  soliciting  aid  therefor. 
The  thought  took  immediate  shape 
in  action; — Bishop  Chase  made  up 

*This  was  a  son  by  his  first  wife,  Mary 
Fay,  who  died  May  5,  1818. 

27 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

his  mind  to  start  for  England  the 
coming  autumn,  it  being  then  the 
middle  of  June.  As  preliminary, 
however,  he  addressed  a  circular 
letter  to  the  American  Bishops,  ad- 
vising them  of  his  plan,  and  asking 
their  sympathy  and  countenance  in 
carrying  it  out.  He  also  asked  the 
prayers  of  the  Church  for  his  suc- 
cess. Before  receiving  answers  to 
his  circular,  he  started  with  his  fam- 
ily from  Cincinnati  (where  he  was 
then  temporarily  residing  as  Presi- 
dent of  the  Cincinnati  College)  in  his 
private  carriage — himself  the  coach- 
man, for  he  could  afford  no  other — 
and  so  journeyed  eight  hundred  miles 
to  Kingston,  New  York,  where  his 
family  was  to  remain  with  relatives 
during  his  absence  in  Europe. 

Arriving  at  Kingston,  he  found  a 

letter  from  Bishop  Hobart,  of  New 

York,  emphatically  discouraging  his 

zealous  purpose — arguing  its  impro- 

28 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

priety,  proclaiming  its  object  unnec- 
essary and  uncalled  for,  asserting 
the  prior  claim  of  the  General  Sem- 
inary to  help  from  abroad,  if  any 
were  to  be  solicited,  and  indicating 
plainly  his  determination  to  oppose 
Bishop  Chase's  efforts  (if  he  should 
persist  in  making  them)  in  England, 
whither  he  was  himself  expecting  to 
start  at  nearly  the  same  time.  This 
was  a  sort  of  spiritual  bombshell, 
with  the  fuse  manifestly  burning, 
to  Bishop  Chase's  nearest  friends 
and  relatives.  He  was  made  of 
other  stuff,  however,  and  did  not 
change  his  mind.  Two  other  letters 
— from  Bishops  Ravenscroft  and 
Bowen — were  received,  approving  his 
purpose  and  wishing  him  God-speed; 
other  Bishops  were  silent,  and  these 
were  presumed  to  be  (as  Bishop 
Hobart  had  informed  him,  indeed, 
that  they  were)  against  him.  Bishop 
Chase's  will  was  unmoved — he  was 
29 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

determined  to  have  his  way.  "At 
length,"  he  writes,  "came  the  1st  of 
October,  the  day  fixed  on  while  in 
Ohio  for  his  embarkation.  There 
was  one  clergyman  in  New  York 
who  ventured  to  accompany  him  to 
the  ship,  for  whom  in  remembrance 
of  this  good  deed  he  will  never  cease 
to  pray.  They  walked  together, 
while  his  wife  and  invalid  son  rode 
to  White  Hall  in  a  coach,  in  which 
he  embraced  for  the  last  time  on 
earth  his  darling  son.  .  .  .  Soon 
the  anchor  was  up  and  the  ship  at 
sea.  All  the  passengers  seemed 
happy,  and  the  writer  tried  to  feel 
so;  but  the  remembrance  of  what  he 
had  left  behind — his  sick  son,  his 
anxious  wife,  his  helpless  children, 
his  suffering  diocese,  and  his  angry 
friends— forbade;  and, when  he  looked 
on  the  waters,  he  knew  not  who,  if 
any,  would  welcome  him  with  their 
greeting;  but  he  was  well  assured 
30 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

who  would  attempt  to  drive  him 
from  the  English  shores,  for  from 
his  own  lips  he  heard  the  promise.' ' 
This  last  expression  doubtless  refers 
to  a  personal  interview  with  Bishop 
Hobart,  whose  name  is  only  indicated 

by  a  dash  (" ")  in  Bishop  Chase's 

autobiography.  He  had  previously 
requested  the  prayers  of  the  Church 
for  a  person  going  to  sea,  he  tells  us, 
adding:  "In  this  he  was  denied— on 
what  principle  he  never  asked." 

Bishop  Chase  landed  in  England 
early  in  November,  1823,  and  at 
once  found  the  air  full  of  ill-omens. 
Every-where  he  saw  indications  of 
what  is  called  the  cold  shoulder.  A 
paper  impugning  his  case,  motives 
and  character,  had  been  printed  and 
circulated,  and  there  was  a  wide- 
spread prejudice  against  him.  He 
had,  however,  gained  a  few  friends 
himself,  and  by  means  of  a  letter  of 
introduction  written  to  Lord  Gam- 
31 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

bier,  then  of  the  British  Admiralty, 
by  Henry  Clay  (who  had  met  Lord 
Gambier  during  the  Peace  negotia- 
tions at  Ghent),  he  was  admitted  to 
the  acquaintance  of  that  nobleman, 
by  whom  his  cause  was  earnestly 
supported,  although  he,  too,  had  read 
and  was  at  first  prejudiced  by  the 
hostile  publication.  Gradually  the 
opposition  began  to  give  way;  other 
friends  were  won,  and  finally  a  stroke 
of  Providence,  as  the  Bishop  chose 
to  look  upon  it,  created  a  strong  cur- 
rent of  feeling  in  his  favor. 

I  have  mentioned,  as  an  episode  in 
Bishop  Chase's  life  at  Worthington, 
the  freeing  of  his  New  Orleans  negro 
servant,  Jack,  who,  after  an  interval 
of  eleven  years,  had  been  arrested 
and  held  subject  to  his  master's 
orders.  In  1824,  the  British  Parlia- 
ment was  much  divided  on  the  pro- 
posed abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  whoever  showed  a 
32 


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URB 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

favorable  disposition  toward  the  en- 
slaved race  was  sure  of  a  large  ad- 
herence of  friends.  At  this  time  a 
benevolent  gentleman  named  Joseph 
Butterworth,  a  friend  in  sympathy 
and  acting  with  Wilberf  orce,  was  al- 
so a  member  of  Parliament.  Through 
intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
police,  according  to  Bishop  Chase, 
Mr.  Butterworth  knew  that  the 
Bishop  had  been  in  London  ever 
since  he  took  up  his  residence  in  a 
certain  quarter,  except  during  a  visit 
to  the  north  of  England.  "He 
knew,"  Bishop  Chase  writes,  "that 
he  was  there  unnoticed  and  unknown, 
from  November  till  after  his  return 
in  the  spring  from  the  north,  and  he 
had  thought  little  of  him  because 
others  did  so.  'And  how/  the  reader 
will  ask,  'came  Mr.  Butterworth  to 
think  otherwise  of  the  neglected  be- 
ing living  in  No.  10  Further-stone 
Buildings,  High  Holborn?'  Simply 
33 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

because  Dr.  Robert  Dow,  of  New 
Orleans,  came  to  town.  'And  how 
could  this  gentleman  influence  so 
sound  a  judgment  as  that  of  Mr. 
Joseph  Butterworth?' "  Dr.  Dow, 
the  New  Orleans  friend,  who  had 
written  to  Bishop  Chase  regarding 
his  negro  servant,  and  through  whom 
the  latter  was  emancipated,  had 
started  to  make  his  home  in  his 
native  land,  Scotland.  Wishing  to 
invest  some  funds,  while  stopping  in 
London  on  his  way,  he  had  consulted 
Joseph  Butterworth,  and  in  the  con- 
versation which  followed  Mr.  Butter- 
worth  had  inquired,  since  Dr.  Dow 
had  come  from  America,  whether  he 
knew  Bishop  Chase.  Yes,  Bishop 
Chase  had  once  been  his  pastor  at 
New  Orleans.  Then  as  to  his  real 
character?  "Always  good,"  was  the 
answer; — why  was  it  questioned? 
He  then  learned  of  Bishop  Chase's 
presence  in  England,  and  of  the 
34 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

peculiar  neglect  shown  him.  Dr. 
Dow  expressed  surprise.  Mr.  But- 
terworth  observed  that  there  must 
be  something  singular  in  this  gentle- 
man, or  he  would  not  have  remained 
voluntarily  in  the  position  wherein 
he  was  regarded  by  the  public— 
Bishop  Chase,  in  order  to  keep  the 
peace  of  the  Church,  having  stoic- 
ally refrained  from  answering  the 
charges  printed  and  circulated  to  his 
prejudice.  Dr.  Dow  replied  that  he 
never  knew  anything  singular  in 
Bishop  Chase  except  in  the  case  of 
his  emancipating  a  yellow  slave,  add- 
ing that  he  hardly  presumed  that 
would  hurt  him  in  England,  although 
in  New  Orleans  it  had  been  consid- 
ered foolish  as  well  as  singular. 
Doctor  Dow  then  related  to  Mr.  But- 
terwrorth  the  story  of  the  escaped 
house-servant,  and  of  his  emancipa- 
tion by  Bishop  Chase.  This  gained 
the  Bishop  a  sudden  tide  of  f riend- 
35 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

ship  and  favor,  which  was  unac- 
countable until  some  time  after, 
when  a  letter  from  his  old  New 
Orleans  physician  shed  light  upon  it. 
In  this  way,  according  to  the  Bishop's 
interpretation  of  events,  the  negro, 
Jack,  became  a  founder — or  a  power- 
ful instrument  and  lever  in  the 
foundation — of  Kenyon  College.  Mr. 
Butterwoth  had  sought  Bishop  Chase, 
invited  him  to  his  house,  introduced 
him  to  influential  friends,  and  the 
Ohio  Church-College  stock  was  at 
once  popular.  Miss  McFarlane, 
the  Scotch  Bishop's  daughter,  who 
showed  Bishop  Chase  his  own  letter 
written  to  Rev.  Dr.  Jarvis  from 
Worthington,  with  the  mark  of  his 
bloody  sweat  upon  it,  also  became  a 
valuable  friend,  securing  the  favor 
of  Lady  Rosse,  whose  subscription 
built  Rosse  Chapel,  named  after  her, 
at  Gambier. 
The  success  of  Bishop  Chase's 
36 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

mission  abroad  was  now  assured. 
He  returned  to  America  in  the  early 
autumn  of  1824,  with  a  subscription 
of  about  five  thousand  guineas 
(twenty-five  thousand  dollars),  a  sum 
much  larger  in  effect  then  than  now. 
Among  the  names  upon  the  list, 
which  included  several  hundred  of 
the  clergy  and  laity,  were  some  of 
the  most  eminent  ones  in  Church 
and  State  of  the  Kingdom — such  as 
the  Lord  Bishops  of  London,  Dur- 
ham, St.  David's,  and  Chester;  the 
Deans  of  Canterbury  and  Salisbury; 
Lords  Kenyon,  Gambier,  Bexley,  and 
Barham;  the  dowager  Countess  of 
Rosse,  and  Miss  Hannah  More.  The 
subscriptions  ranged  from  one  pound 
upward  to  over  four  hundred  pounds 
sterling,  and  the  transmission  of 
the  funds  awaited  only  the  action 
of  Henry  Clay,  who  v/as  named  as 
an  umpire  in  the  selection  of  a  loca- 
tion for  the  contemplated  institution. 
37 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

It  had  been  originally  intended  to 
establish  the  Theological  Seminary 
and  College  upon  Bishop  Chase's 
Worthington  farm,  he  having  agreed 
to  give  it  for  that  purpose;  but 
it  was  provided  that  if  another 
more  desirable  location  were  gratui- 
tously offered,  then  Bishop  Chase's 
land  should  revert  to  him.  The 
Theological  Seminary  of  Ohio  was 
begun,  however,  upon  the  farm  near 
Worthington,  under  an  act  of  incor- 
poration passed  by  the  Ohio  Legis- 
lature, in  1825;  and  in  January,  1826, 
a  supplementary  act  created  the 
faculty  of  a  college,  under  the  des- 
ignation of  "The  President  and  Fac- 
ulty of  Kenyon  College.' '  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Reed,  of  Putnam,  Ohio, 
meanwhile  offered  to  give  a  thous- 
and acres  of  land  situated  on  Alum 
Creek,  several  miles  northeast  of 
Worthington,  as  a  seat  for  the  Col- 
lege, and  for  a  time  this  seemed  pre- 
38 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

ferable  in  the  eyes  of  the  Bishop  to 
the  Worthington  land.  But  there 
was  a  contest  of  opinion,  among 
those  now  become  interested,  as  to 
the  most  desirable  location;  several 
influential  gentlemen  of  the  State, 
including  Charles  Hammond,  Rufus 
King,  John  Bailhache,  Col.  John 
Johnston,  and  others,  who  were 
among  the  original  Trustees — desir- 
ing to  place  the  College  near  or  in 
one  of  the  larger  cities.  Cincinnati, 
Chillicothe,  and  one  or  two  other 
places  were  suggested.  Bishop 
Chase  opposed  his  will  to  these,  hold- 
ing it  of  vital  importance  that  the 
institution  so  dear  to  his  soul,  and 
for  which  he  had  already  given  so 
much  in  time,  patience,  and  energy, 
should  be  beyond  the  immediate 
influence  of  cities,  on  wide  lands  of 
its  own,  through  which  it  could  have 
a  power  by  right  of  the  soil,  and  ex- 
ercise a  strong  local  influence  and 
39 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

government.  Col.  John  Johnston, 
one  of  the  Trustees,  criticized  this 
theory,  saying  that  to  build  up  a 
literary  institution  from  the  stump 
in  the  woods  was  a  chimerical  pro- 
ject;— it  would  surely  fail  and  be- 
come an  object  of  ridicule.  Present- 
ly, after  the  Bishop  had  begun  to 
make  some  clearings  on  Mrs.  Reed's 
Alum  Creek  lands,  his  attention  was 
directed  by  Daniel  S.  Norton  and 
Henry  B.  Curtis,  of  Mount  Vernon, 
to  a  large  tract  of  wild  land  in  Knox 
county,  owned  by  William  Hogg,  of 
Brownsville,  Pennsylvania,  and  this 
proved  so  desirable  in  his  eyes  that 
he  at  once  made  a  contract  to  pur- 
chase it,  subject  to  the  approval  of 
the  Trustees  and  of  Henry  Clay. 
This  purchase,  after  considerable 
debate,  was  finally  approved;  when 
Mr.  Hogg  consented  to  make  one- 
fourth  of  the  price  of  the  land  (eight 
thousand  acres  at  three  dollars  per 
40 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  Of 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

acre)  a  free  gift,  and,  for  eighteen 
thousand  dollars,  conveyed  the  title 
to  the  Trustees  of  the  Theological 
Seminary  of  the  Diocese  of  Ohio. 

This  land,  occupied  by  Kenyon 
College  for  over  half  a  century,  was 
a  wilderness,  but  a  beautiful  one, 
and  as  healthy  and  happy  a  location 
for  a  college  as  could  be  found  in 
the  Ohio  Valley. 

In  June,  1826,  Bishop  Chase  started 
with  his  little  army  of  occupation 
for  the  chosen  spot,  fifty  miles  away, 
which  he  named  Gambier  Hill,  after 
his  first  powerful  and  steadfast 
English  friend,  Lord  Gambier.  "His 
hired  man  and  his  little  son,  Dudley, 
were  the  only  persons  who  accom- 
panied him  from  Worthington  to  the 
promised  land  on  this  lonely  jour- 
ney," the  Bishop  writes,  adding:  "And 
must  it  be  called  lonely?  Nay,  he 
felt  it  otherwise.  He  experienced  a 
consciousness  of  Divine  aid  in  com- 
41 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

mencing  this  great  work,  which  con- 
vinced him  he  was  not  alone.  God 
was  with  him,  and,  though  like 
Jacob,  he  should  have  nothing  but 
the  ground  to  rest  on,  and  a  stone 
for  a  pillow,  he  trusted  that  God's 
presence  would  be  his  support." 
Gambier  Hill,  upon  which  Bishop 
Chase  fixed  the  location  of  the  col- 
lege buildings,  is  a  level  ridge  run- 
ning north  and  south,  elevated  about 
one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above  the 
Kokosing,  an  Indian  stream,  which 
flows  from  a  pretty  valley  on  the 
eastern  side  around  its  southern 
base,  and,  after  making  a  sort  of 
gigantic  ox-bow  in  the  wide  lowlands 
to  the  southeast,  disappears  far 
away  to  the  south  and  west.  From 
its  top  a  varity  of  as  charming  land- 
scape is  visible  as  perhaps  any  out- 
look in  the  State  of  Ohio  affords. 
The  valley  of  the  Kokosing  eastward 
is  the  picture  of  "a  smiling  land;' 
42 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

westward  are  even  yet  the  sugges - 
tions  of  an  unconquered  wilderness. 
Oaks  predominate  in  the  surround- 
ing forest; — how  gorgeous  with  gold 
and  crimson  I  remember  them  in 
far-back  autumnal  seasons!  Here 
is  the  picture,  drawn  by  Bishop 
Chase,  of  Gambier  Hill,  at  his  first 
occupation:  "The  whole  surface  of 
the  hill  was  then  a  windfall,  being  a 
great  part  of  it  covered  with  fallen 
and  upturned  trees,  between  and 
over  which  had  come  up  a  second 
growth  of  thick  trees  and  bushes. 
It  was  on  such  a  place  as  this 
(proverbially  impervious  even  to  the 
hunters  after  wolves,  which  made 
it  their  covert),  that  the  writer 
pitched  his  tent,  if  such  it  might 
be  called.  On  the  south  end  or 
promontory  of  this  hill  (near  to 
which,  below,  ran  the  road  used  by 
the  first  settlers),  grew  some  tall 
oak  trees,  which  evidently  had  es- 
43 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

caped  the  hurricane  in  days  of  yore. 
Under  the  shelter  of  these  some 
boards  in  a  light  wagon  were  taken 
nearly  to  the  top  of  the  hill;  there 
they  were  dropped,  and  it  was  with 
these  the  writer's  house  was  built, 
after  the  brush  was  with  great  diffi- 
culty cleared  away.  Two  crotched 
sticks  were  driven  into  the  ground, 
and  on  them  a  transverse  pole  was 
placed,  and  on  the  pole  was  placed  the 
brush,  inclining  to  the  ground  each 
way.  The  ends  or  gable  to  this  room, 
or  roof-shelter,  were  but  slightly 
closed  by  some  clapboards  rived  on 
the  spot  from  a  fallen  oak  tree.  The 
beds  to  sleep  on  were  thrown  on 
bundles  of  straw,  kept  up  from  the 
damp  ground  by  a  kind  of  temporary 
platform,  resting  on  stakes  driven 
deeply  into  the  earth.  This  was  the 
first  habitation  on  Gambier  Hill,  and 
nearly  on  the  site  where  now  rises 
the  noble  edifice  of  Kenyon  College/7 
44 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

Such  an  "opening"  as  this  would 
not  surprise  us  if  made  by  an  ad- 
venturous pioneer,  with  the  object 
of  building  a  rude  home  in  the  back- 
woods, but  it  appears  in  a  different 
light  when  looked  upon  as  the  work 
of  a  learned  Bishop, — who,  a  year 
before,  had  been  entertained  by 
British  Lords  and  Ladies,  and  treated 
with  respect  and  reverence  by  high 
dignitaries  of  the  Church  of  England, 
—preparatory  to  founding  an  insti- 
tution which  he  fondly  hoped  would 
in  time  be  a  great  center  of  light 
and  culture.  What  a  task-work  had 
this  one  man  set  before  himself,  and 
how  strenuously  he  wTrought  to 
accomplish  his  purpose!  "It  is  said," 
Bishop  Chase  writes  in  allusion  to 
this  seemingly  "forlorn  advance"  : 
"It  is  said,  by  those  not  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  facts  and  the 
nature  of  things,  that  the  writer 
might  have  avoided  the  difficulties 
45 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

and  exposures  here  described  by 
residing  in  the  nearest  village,  or 
even  by  taking  shelter,  for  a  time, 
in  the  little  log  cabins  already 
erected  on  the  premises,  from  one  to 
two  miles  off.  Alas!  if  such  had 
been  his  course,  no  beginning  would 
have  been  made  to  the  great  work. 
He  wanted  money  to  pay  a  resolute 
person  to  go  forward  in  a  work  like 
this,  if  such  could  be  found;  he 
wanted  money  to  pay  for  his  own 
board  in  a  village*  four  miles  off; 
he  wanted  money  to  hire  even 
his  common  hands  and  teams, — 
those  he  used  here  being  the  hands 
and  wagons  usually  employed  on  his 
own  farm  at  Worthington.  Now,  if 
ever  there  was  a  necessity  for 
saying  come,  and  not  go,  to  work, 
that  necessity  existed  here,  the 
donations  hitherto  collected  being 
all    pledged    for   the    lands.     The 

*Mt,  Vernon. 

46 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

word  was  said,  and,  under  Provi- 
dence, to  this  he  owes  his  final 
success.' ' 

The  first  thing  done  was  to  dig  a 
well;  and  this  reminds  me  that 
Bishop  Chase  began  his  great  under- 
taking with  a  temperance  reform. 
He  stipulated  that  no  liquor  should 
be  used  by  the  men  employed  in  his 
building.  He  feared  it  might  com- 
promise in  some  way  the  future 
College.  This  caused  him  some 
trouble.  There  was,  soon  after  the 
beginning,  what  may  be  called  an 
incipient  whisky  rebellion  among 
his  hired  hands.  They  at  length 
sent  him  a  petition  asking  for  a  glass 
three  times  a  day,  saying,  at  the 
close:  "We  think  the  expense  will  be 
repaid  to  the  institution  tenfold." 
The  Bishop  appointed  a  meeting 
with  them,  took  his  seat,  somewhat 
embarrassed,  upon  a  piece  of  slightly 
elevated  timber,  told  them  quietly 
47 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

the  story  of  his  life  and  struggles, 
moved  many  of  them  to  tears, — and 
all  went  to  work  on  the  original 
temperance  platform! 

In  a  letter  to  his  wife,  written 
soon  after  his  arrival  on  the  ground, 
he  says:  "If  you  ask  how  I  get  along 
without  money,  I  answer,  the  Lord 
keepeth  me.  What  do  you  think  of 
His  mercy  in  sending  good  Mr. 
Davis  with  half  a  cheese  from  his 
mother,  and  twenty-five  dollars  from 
his  father,  presented  to  me  out  of 
pure  regard  to  the  great  and  good 
work  which  God  enables  me  to  carry 
on?  Mr.  Norton  has  sent  me  three 
hands  for  a  short  time.  James 
Meleck  came  one  day,  and  old  Mr. 
Elliot  another.  We  have  built  us  a 
tent  cabin,  and  if  we  had  any  one 
to  cook  for  us  wre  should  live. 
It  is  impossible  to  make  the  hands 
board  themselves.  We  must  find 
them  provisions  ourselves,  or  have 
48 


THE   COUvEGE   CHAPEL 
(The  Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit; 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

URBAKA 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

none  to  help  us.  If  Ave  can  get  the 
poor  neighbors  to  cook  a  little  for 
us  we  do  well.  Judy  Holmes  has 
been  here  for  three  days,  and  is  now 
engaged  in  surveying  the  north  sec- 
tion. The  streets  and  roads  in  this, 
the  south  section,  have  been  laid  out, 
as  far  as  can  be,  till  we  find  water. 
If  this  can  not  be  obtained  here  we 
shall  move  to  some  other  quarter. 
Pray  send  me,  by  Rebecca,  two  more 
beds  and  bedding  similar  to  those  I 
brought  with  me.  I  write  you  this 
by  a  poor,  dim  hog's-lard  lamp, 
which,  shining  askance  on  my  paper, 
will  hardly  permit  me  to  say  how 
faithfully  I  am  your  affectionate 
husband." 

Here  it  appears  just  and  proper  to 
say,  that,  if  the  burden  Bishop 
Chase  had  assumed  was  a  heavy  one, 
his  broad  shoulders  were  well  fitted 
to  bear  it,  particularly  as  he  had  an 
efficient  helpmate  in  his  wife — (she 
49 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

was  his  second  wife,  Sophia  May 
Ingraham,  whom  he  married  in  1819) 
— of  whom  it  has  been  written: 
"Mrs.  Chase  entered  with  her  whole 
soul  into  her  husband's  plans.  She 
was  a  lady  perfectly  at  home  in  all 
the  arts  and  minutiae  of  house- 
wifery; as  happy  in  darning  stock- 
ings for  the  boys,  as  in  entertaining 
visitors  in  the  parlor;  in  making  a 
bargain  with  a  farmer  in  his  rough 
boots  and  hunting  blouse,  as  in  com- 
pleting a  purchase  from  an  intelli- 
gent and  accomplished  merchant; 
and  as  perfectly  at  home  in  doing 
business  with  the  world  about  her, 
and  in  keeping  the  multifarious 
account  of  her  increasing  household, 
as  in  presiding  at  her  dinner  table, 
or  dispensing  courtesy  in  her  draw- 
ing-room. " 

Bishop  Chase  spent  the  following 
autumn  and  winter  in  the  Eastern 
States,  soliciting  further  assistance 
50 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

toward  the  completion  of  the  work 
begun  by  him,  issuing  there  a  "Plea 
on  behalf  of  Religion  and  Learning 
in  Ohio/'  from  which  season  of  effort 
about  eighteen  thousand  dollars  were 
realized.  In  June,  1827,  the  corner- 
stone of  Kenyon  College  was  laid, 
and  the  neighborhood  grew  busy 
with  the  various  workmen.  In 
August  of  that  year  the  Bishop 
wrote  to  his  wife  as  follows:  "The 
great  work  progresses  slowly  but 
surely.  The  basement  story  is  now 
completed.  The  tall  scaffold-poles 
now  rear  their  heads  all  around  the 
building.  The  joist  timbers  are  now 
taking  their  places,  and  the  frames 
of  the  partition  walls  below  are  put- 
ting together.  The  masons  are 
pressing  the  carpenters,  the  carpen- 
ters the  teamsters,  and  the  teamsters 
the  hewers.  The  whip-sawyers  are 
not  able  to  keep  up  with  the  demand 
in  their  line.  The  blacksmiths,  two 
51 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

in  number,  are  driven  very  hard  to 
keep  sharp  the  hammers  and  picks, 
repair  the  chains,  mend  wagons  and 
make  new  irons  for  them,  and  shoes 
for  twenty-eight  cattle  in  the  teams. 
Our  log  house,  additional  to  that  you 
saw,  will  receive  its  roof  to-morrow, 
and,  in  the  beginning  of  the  week,  I 
trust,  will  be  occupied  as  a  dining- 
room.  The  stone  gothic  building, 
for  a  Professor's  house,  must  soon  be 
plastered.  I  go  to  Mount  Vernon 
to-morrow  for  a  thousand  things, 
and  will  put  this  in  the  post-office 
for  you.  We  have  now  nearly  sixty 
hands,  all  busy  and  faithfully  at 
work;  an  account  of  each  is  taken 
every  night."  During  all  this  week- 
day labor,  the  Bishop  tells  us,  he  was 
never  unmindful  of  his  sacred  call- 
ing as  a  clergyman,  officiating  at 
Gambier,  at  Mount  Vernon,  or  else- 
where in  the  neighborhood.  Visit- 
ing Worthington  in  October,  and 
52 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

finding  his  wife  ill  with  typhoid 
fever,  he  feels  the  necessity  of  leav- 
ing her  (convalescence,  however,  had 
begun),  asking  her,  the  following 
evening,  in  a  letter:  "Was  this,  my 
desertion  of  you,  from  my  own  incli- 
nation? No !  Nothing  but  the  great 
duty  of  overseeing  what  God  hath  so 
miraculously  put  into  my  hands 
could  have  persuaded  me  to  do  this. 
Even  as  it  is,  I  feel  a  pang  which  I 
can  not  describe  to  you.  My  eyes 
fill  with  tears  when  I  think  how  I 
left  you  in  sickness.  But  God's  will 
be  done!  My  exile  here  is  the  re- 
sult of  this  submission. " 

Soon  after  he  sees  the  good  policy 
of  building  a  saw-mill — whip-saw- 
yers were  not  sufficient,  and  the 
only  saw-miller  in  the  vicinity  de- 
manded exorbitant  prices  for  lum- 
ber. The  workmen  approve,  and 
the  work  is  begun  at  once,  all  hands 
assisting.  A  dam  is  nearly  com- 
53 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

pleted,  a  long  mill-race  across  a  neck 
of  low  land  (where  a  bend  of  the 
stream  has  formed  the  great  ox-bow 
already  mentioned)  is  commenced. 
The  news  of  this  extravagant  under- 
taking travels  through  the  diocese, 
and  the  Bishop's  plans  are  pro- 
nounced rash  and  visionary.  The 
digging  of  the  race  is  begun — the 
tail-race,  indeed,  is  almost  finished; 
but  the  earth-scraper  progresses 
slowly.  Meanwhile  the  first  story 
above  the  basement  of  the  main  col- 
lege building  is  erected,  on  one  side, 
as  far  as  the  windows.  But  how 
about  the  mill-race?  The  equinoc- 
tial storm  is  due  and  dreaded.  It 
arrives.  The  rains  fell  and  the  floods 
came.  The  Kokosing  rose  to  an 
unusual  height,  and,  somewhat  ag- 
gravated by  the  dam,  overflowed  the 
lowlands.  As  Noah  from  the  Ark, 
the  anxious  Bishop  looked  down  from 
Gambier  Hill.  He  felt  that  all  was 
54 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

lost.  The  dam  could  not  be  seen. 
The  sky,  however,  cleared;  the 
waters  subsided;  the  dam  was  still 
there,  and  the  head-race  was  there — 
a  channel  of  running  water  already 
— a  special  gift  of  Providence,  that 
saved  a  large  expense  of  money  and 
labor.  "This  mark  of  Providential 
goodness/'  writes  the  Bishop,  "was 
of  signal  service  in  building  Kenyon 
Colleger 

This  miracle  of  the  mill-race  won 
over  to  the  Bishop's  side,  it  seems, 
the  skeptical  driver  of  the  local 
stage-coach,  who  was  hitherto  of  the 
opposition,  sneering  and  jesting  at 
the  mad  college-builder.  One  day, 
shortly  afterwards,  it  is  related,  his 
carriage  being  full  and  the  driver 
being  seated,  by  its  construction,  in 
juxtaposition  with  the  passengers,  a 
conversation  wras  begun,  in  which 
the  plan  of  Kenyon  College  was  con- 
demned and  ridiculed,  and  its  failure 
55 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

predicted.  This  was  affirmed  as  the 
opinion  of  all  in  the  coach,  and  then 
asserted  to  be  that  of  all  people 
throughout  the  country.  "The  Bish- 
op has  no  friends/'  they  said;  "his 
plan  is  hopeless/'  "You  are  a  little 
too  fast,"  said  the  driver;  "a  little 
too  fast,  gentlemen,  in  what  you  say. 
Bishop  Chase  has  one  friend."  "And 
who  is  he?"  was  the  common  question. 
"It  is  one,"  the  driver  said,  "whom 
if  you  knew  you  would  not  despise; 
and  knowing  his  favor  to  the  Bishop, 
you  would  no  longer  speak  thus." 
"And  who  is  he?  Who  can  this 
friend  be?  "  was  the  reiterated  ques- 
tion. "Gentlemen,"  said  the  driver, 
solemnly,  "God  is  Bishop  Chase's 
friend,  and  my  proof  is  the  fact  that 
He  caused  the  late  equinoctial  rain- 
storm to  dig  his  mill-race  for  him, 
thus  saving  him  the  expense  of  many 
hundred  dollars." 

It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  con- 
56 


HIS  COLLEGE  lH  THE  WOODS 

tinue  in  detail  this  story  of  a  heroic 
persistence:  whatever  the  results  of 
the  college  itself  have  been  or  may 
be,  Kenyon  College,  named  after 
Lord  Kenyon,  was  built;  the  central 
building  was  completed  with  the 
Bishop's  own  supervision;  Rosse 
Chapel  (endowed  by  Lady  Rosse,  and 
named  after  her),  was  begun;  the 
College,  having  been  removed  from 
Worthington  (where  it  had  been 
carried  on  meanwhile  upon  the 
Bishop's  farm),  in  1828,  was  recog- 
nized as  a  living  fact — and  Bishop 
Chase  was  the  one  man,  under  God, 
who,  against  many  and  great  ob- 
stacles, had  made  it  such.  His 
struggle  in  its  behalf  was  a  fight 
with  the  Dragon,  and  he,  a  true 
Knight  of  the  Red  Cross,  came  off 
conqueror. 

But,   if    I  am  rightly    informed, 
Bishop  Chase  was  better  fitted  to 
build  than  to  govern,     No  man  could 
57 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

have  done  the  task-work  he  had  ac- 
complished without  something  more 
than  selfish  devotion.  There  may 
have  been  a  ground- work  of  personal 
ambition  underneath  his  purpose, 
but  it  must  still  have  been  a  noble 
one,  and  breathed  the  true  air  of 
religion.  Soon  after  the  removal  of 
the  College  to  Gambier,  divisions 
began  to  show  themselves  between 
the  Bishop,  who  was  exofficio  Presi- 
dent of  the  Institution,  and  the 
Faculty.  Bitter  feelings  grew  up 
between  him  and  some  of  the  Pro- 
fessors. Perhaps  the  Bishop,  who 
did  not  always  think  it  necessary  to 
attend  the  Faculty's  meetings,  was 
too  free  to  ignore  its  judgments  and 
decisions,  and  make  college  law  a 
matter  of  his  own  personal  discre- 
tion. His  disposition  was  not,  other 
things  considered,  an  unfortunate 
one  in  planning  and  building  the 
material  structure,  but  seemed  doubt- 
58 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

fully  fitted  to  conduct  the  moral  and 
spiritual  institution.  I  have  read 
some  of  the  various  documents 
printed  regarding  this  matter,  and 
am  inclined  to  think  Bishop  Chase 
was  in  error.  He  was  arbitrary, 
impetuous,  fierce,  and  unjust,  at 
times.  The  disagreements  at  length 
led  to  his  resignation,  in  1829,  at  a 
time  when  his  services  in  the  material 
affairs  of  the  College  (whose  build- 
ings were  still  in  progress)  were 
thought  indispensable.  Consequent- 
ly his  resignation  was  not  accepted 
by  the  Diocesan  Convention.  An- 
other year  having  passed,  and  the 
state  of  ill-feeling  and  jealousy  yet 
existing,  Bishop  Chase  again  pre- 
sented his  resignation  to  the  Con- 
vention held  that  year  at  Gambier. 
This  time  the  resignation  was  ac- 
cepted,— perhaps  contrary  to  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  Bishop;  for  it  is  re- 
ported that,  on  the  day  following,  he 
59 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

shook  the  dust  of  Kenyon  from  his 
feet,  mounted  his  horse,  rode  hastily 
away,  and  betook  himself  to  the 
place  of  a  relative  in  Holmes  county, 
called  by  him  "the  Valley  of  Peace/' 
leaving  his  family  to  pack  up  and 
follow  him  at  their  leisure,  He 
never  returned.  After  having  set- 
tled for  a  while  in  Michigan,  he  went 
to  Illinois,  where,  at  a  place  called 
by  him  "The  Robin's  Nest,"  he 
founded  a  new  institution  known  as 
Jubilee  College.  A  gentlemen  de- 
scribed "The  Robin's  Nest"  to  me  as 
a  row  of  three  or  four  little  log 
houses,  terminated  by  a  still  smaller 
frame  building.  We  may  smile  at 
the  picture,  but  we  should  remember 
that  stone  walls  do  not  a  college 
make  any  more  than  they  make  a 
prison — the  learned  man,  the  learned 
body  of  men,  make  a  college.  This 
was  the  characteristic  beginning  of 
Jubilee  College,  of  which  otherwise 
60 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  W00D8 

I  know  nothing.  Bishop  Chase,  who 
then  became  the  first  Episcopal 
Bishop  of  Illinois,  spent  the  remain- 
der of  his  life  in  that  State,  dying 
there  in  1852. 

Bishop  Chase  deserved  the  grati- 
tude of  his  Church  in  Ohio  by  his 
efforts  in  its  behalf;  and,  perhaps, 
there  was  hardly  so  much  tenderness 
shown  to  his  temperament  as  he  had 
earned  by  his  long  suffering,  heroic 
endurance  and  persistent  energy. 
Yet,  though  in  effect  banished  from 
the  place  for  which  he  wrought  and 
fought  so  long,  Kenyon  College  is, 
to-day,  with  every  stone  in  its  every 
building,  his  monument  and  witness. 
A  portrait  of  him,  said  to  be  life-like, 
painted  on  the  commission  of  some 
British  admirer  and  friend,  while  he 
was  in  England  in  1824,  was  sent  to 
the  United  States,  and  presented  to 
the  college.  I  saw  it  in  the  library. 
It  shows,  I  think,  some  strong  points 
61 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

of  resemblance  to  his  nephew,  the 
late  distinguished  Chief  Justice,  in 
his  younger  days.  And  I  may  here 
remark,  by  the  way,  that  the  remains 
or  the  Acland  printing-press,  pur- 
chased for  the  use  of  the  Ohio  Epis- 
copal College,  with  a  separate  sub- 
scription raised  among  the  ladies  of 
the  English  nobility  by  Lady  Acland, 
wife  of  Sir  Thomas  Acland,  during 
the  Bishop's  mission  to  England, 
were  pointed  out  to  me  in  the  back 
door-yard  of  a  little  private  printing- 
office  in  Gambier. 

I  shall  not  go  into  a  careful  further 
history  of  the  College.  Bishop 
Chase's  record,  in  connection  with 
it,  seems  to  me  unusually  interesting, 
and  I  have  merely  tried  to  sketch  it 
with  the  help  of  his  own  autobiogra- 
phy, added  to  whatever  personal 
knowledge  I  possessed  or  could  ob- 
tain. I  may  say,  however,  that  the 
College  for  some  years  after  the 
62 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

old  Bishop's  exit,  had  a  struggle  for 
life;  and  its  progress  largely  depend- 
ed on  often-repeated  "beggings." 
(This  word  was  given  to  me,  as  the 
right  one,  by  an  accomplished  gen- 
tleman of  Gambier.*)  Bishop  Mc- 
Ilvaine,  his  successor,  also  took  up 
one  or  two  subscriptions  in  England 
— the  first  as  long  ago  as  1835 — and 
several  in  the  United  States. 

The  buildings  of  Kenyon  College 
are  as  noble,  if  not  so  extensive,  as 
those  of  any  institution  of  learning 
in  America.  The  college  building 
proper  is  a  large  and  handsome  one, 
of  dark  gray  sand-stone,  one  hun- 
dred and  ninety  feet  long  and  four 
stories  high,  including  the  basement, 
with  turrets,  pinnacles,  and  a  belfry, 
topped  with  a  spire  one  hundred  and 

*Rev.  Alfred  Blake,  since  deceased,  a 
schoolmate  and  classmate  of  Chief  Justice 
Chase — born,  like  him,  at  Keene,  N.  H. — 
who,  for  many  years,  kept  an  excellent 
classical  school  for  boys  at  Gambler. 

63 


ttOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

seventeen  feet  high,  in  the  center. 
This  edifice  stands  upon  the  southern 
end  of  Gambier  Hill,  fronts  north- 
ward, and  overlooks  the  valley  of 
the  Kokosing  for  many  miles.  Half 
a  mile  to  the  north  of  the  college 
building  is  Bexley  Hall  (named  after 
Lord  Bexley),  erected  for  the  use  of 
the  Theological  Seminary  exclu- 
sively. It  is  an  elegant  and  tasteful 
structure.  Half  way  between  these 
two  buildings,  on  either  side  of  the 
main  street  or  avenue,  is  the  town 
or  village  of  Gambier;  a  little  to  the 
east  of  which,  but  hidden  by  trees, 
is  Milnor  Hall,  designed  for  the 
grammer-school,  and  named  after 
Lady  Milnor.  An  extensive  park 
encloses  most  of  the  college  build- 
ings. Upon  the  western  side  of  the 
path  through  the  park  is  Rosse 
Chapel — built  with  the  endowment 
of,  and  named  after,  Lady  Rosse — a 
large,  low  building  in  sandstone,  of 
64 


THE   PRAYER    CROSS 


LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

UK. 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

Ionic  architecture.  Nearly  opposite, 
on  the  eastern  side,  is  Ascension 
Hall,  a  fine  large,  four-storied 
edifice,  of  light-colored  freestone. 
This  contains  the  recitation  rooms, 
society  apartments,  College  library, 
etc.  Near  the  northern  entrance  of 
the  park,  and  on  the  eastern  side,  is 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  com- 
pleted in  1871,  a  gift  of  the  members 
of  Ascension  Parish,  New  York  City, 
and  of  their  former  rector,  Bishop 
Bedell.  This  is  built  of  freestone, 
and  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
ecclesiastical  structures  in  the  West. 
Although  it  can  not  be  said  of 
Kenyon's  graduates,  as  the  poet 
Gray  sang  of  the  alumni  of  Cam- 
bridge, in  the  "realms  of  empyrean 
day": 

"There  sit  the  sainted  Sage,  the  Bard  divine, 
The  few  whom  Genius  grave  to  shine 
Through    every    unborn    age    and     undis- 
covered clime;" — 

for  Kenyon  has  yet  sent  forth  neither 
65 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

a  Milton  nor  a  Newton;  neverthe- 
less, among  its  students  or  graduates 
have  been  men  of  eminence  in  our 
national  politics  and  jurisprudence, 
such  as  Chief  Justice  Chase,  who 
was  also  Secretary  of  the  United 
States  Treasury  under  President 
Lincoln;  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  the 
famous  Secretary  of  War  in  Mr. 
Lincoln's  cabinet;  Henry  Winter 
Davis,  prominent  as  a  Maryland 
Congressman,  orator  and  patriot, 
during  the  war  of  the  Southern 
secession;  Rutherford  B.  Hayes,  late 
President  of  the  United  States;  the 
late  David  Davis,  Associate  Justice 
of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court, 
and  Senator  from  Illinois;  Hon. 
Stanley  Matthews,  also  a  Judge  of 
the  United  States  Supreme  Court; 
with  a  long  list  of  clergymen,  law- 
yers, and  others,  scattered  through- 
out the  country,  and  having  local 
distinction  and  influence. 
66 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 
III. 

POSTSCRIPT. 

[  WILL  venture  to  add,  here,  by 
way  of  postscript,  that  I  had 
known  Worthington  in  my  early 
boyhood — my  father's  home  being 
five  miles  below  on  the  Olentangy 
(he  once  owned  the  land,  including 
mills  there,  now  comprising  Olen- 
tangy Park  at  North  Columbus) — 
long  before  I  had  any  knowledge  of 
Bishop  Chase  or  Kenyon  College, 
and  it  was  after  revisiting  Gambier, 
where  I  had  been  a  student,  and  also 
Worthington,  that  I  originally  wrote 
the  foregoing  sketch  of  their  his- 
tory, which  appeared  in  two  divi- 
sions accordingly.  Bishop  Chase's 
career,  after  he  ceased  to  be  iden- 
tified actively  with  my  sometime 
67 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

alma  mater,  has  not  so  especially  in- 
terested me,  I  will  confess.  His 
name  had  become  only  a  tradition  at 
Gambier,  when  I  first  attended  the 
College — and  "the  Bishop's  Back- 
bone" was  the  familiar  name  (and  I 
hope  I  have  sufficiently  indicated 
that  he  was  possessed  of  a  well-de- 
veloped backbone,  physically  and 
morally,)  for  a  wooded  hilltop  on  the 
road  to  Mt.  Vernon,  where,  it  was 
said,  he  used  to  lie  in  wait  for  and 
confront  truant  students  in  the  old 
days.  Whatever  personal  interest  I 
have  since  felt  in  him  is  perhaps 
chiefly  due  to  the  fact  that  his  more 
famous  nephew,  the  late  Chief 
Justice,  Salmon  P.  Chase,  became 
long  after  my  college  days,  and  re- 
mained until  the  close  of  his  life, — 
by  a  happy  accident,  which  I  need 
not  here  explain — one  of  my  kindest 
and  best  friends.  Yet  it  is  certainly 
very  interesting  to  recall  that  Bishop 
68 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

Chase  not  only  founded  Jubilee  Col- 
lege in  the  then  wild  lands  of  Illinois, 
but  he  also  became  in  1835  the  first 
Bishop  of  that  great  State,  where 
my  father  took  us  to  make  our  new 
home  after  I  had  left  Kenyon  my- 
self. Bishop  Chase  remained,  as  be- 
fore stated,  at  the  head  of  his  Church 
in  Illinois  until  his  death  in  1852. 

I  first  went  to  school  at  Gambier 
through  the  friendly  prompting  of 
the  Rev.  Dr.  William  C.  French,  who 
had  been  at  Worthington,  I  believe, 
in  the  farm-house  seminary,  and 
whom  I  last  saw  while  he  was  in 
charge  of  St.  John's  Church  there, 
when,  after  being  a  year  at  Gam- 
bier, my  mother  and  I  visited  Mrs. 
French  at  the  little  Worthington 
parsonage.  I  had,  however,  previ- 
ously known  Dr.  French  at  Colum- 
bus when  he  was  in  charge  of  St. 
Paul's  Church,  and  I  had  lived  one 
winter  at  his  house  there,  when  he 
69 


EOVT  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

-  employed  in  some  editorial 
capacity  by  an  uncle  of  mine  who 
for  many  years  owned  and  published 
"The  Ohio  State  Journal."  Dr. 
French  was  long  afterwards  editor 
of  'The  Standard  of  the  Cross,"  a 
leading  Church  paper,  first  at  Cleve- 
land, Ohio,  and  later  at  Philadelphia. 
It  happened  that  when  it  had  been 
arranged  I  was  to  go  to  Gambier — 
carrying  letters  of  introduction 
kindly  given  me  by  Dr.  French — the 
very  first  railway  journey  I  ever 
made  was  begun  early  one  beautiful 
morning  in  June  when  my  father 
drove  up  with  me  to  the  little  station 
:  of  Worthington  to  go  aboard  a 
D  northward  on  the  then  round- 
about way  to  Mt  Vernon  and  Gam- 
bier. I  can  yet  feel  the  quick  tremor 
of  the  gently-moving  train  at  its 
starting,  and  recall  the  dewy,  flying 
wooded  landscapes.  How  homesick 
I  was  on  that  first  railway  journey, 
70 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

of  which  I  once  wrote,  fondly  re- 
membering it: 

— ''Renewed 
Mix  my  dull  pang-,  my  eager  thrill. 

'Twas  morn.     When  evening  fell,  I  stood 
A  boy  on  Gambier  Hill." 

Since  my  last  visit  to  Gambier 
many  years  have  passed,  and  there 
have  been,  of  course,  many  changes. 
Rev.  Dr.  Norman  Badger,  long  since 
departed,  was  my  first  acquaintance 
and  friend  at  Gambier,  through  an 
introduction  from  Dr.  French.  Pro- 
fessor (the  Rev.)  George  Denison, 
under  whom  I  studied  mathematics, 
I  recall  as  very  kind  to  me  (he 
marked  me,  it  is  pleasant  to  remem- 
ber, number  1  in  algebra  and  geom- 
etry)— he,  too,  is  long  since  gone 
into  the  shadow  where  is  the  only 
enduring  substance,  perhaps.  Pro- 
fessor John  Trimble,  the  dear  old 
impetuous  Irish-born  Professor  of 
Greek  and  Latin,  (he  was  a  graduate 
of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  in  which 
71 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

we  had  many  friends  while  we  were 
in  Ireland,— Dr.  George  F.  Shaw, 
and  Professor  R.  Y.  Tyrrell,  his  son- 
in-law;  Professors  Edward  Dowden, 
George  Francis  Savage-Armstrong, 
and  others)  has  long  since  passed 
away,  as  has  more  recently  his  son, 
Rev.  Dr.  John  Trimble,  jr.,  who  was 
Adjunct  Professor  of  the  classics  in 
my  student  days,  and  whom  I  knew 
later  in  Kentucky — where  I  was 
married  by  him — and  at  Washington 
up  to  the  close  of  his  life  about  two 
years  ago.  My  old  college  mates, 
associates  and  friends  at  Kenyon, 
Richard  George  Holland,  James  E. 
Homans  among  the  rest, — where  are 
they?  How  useless  to  cry  to  them, 
as  I  once  did :  : 

"O  fresh  of  face,  O  blythe  of  heart, 
Come  back,  come  back,  come  back  !  " 

They  would  appear,  if  at  all,  few 
and  far  between. 
Rosse  Chapel,  partially  burnt  some 

72 


HIS  COLLEGE  IN  THE  WOODS 

years  ago,  was  restored  and  called 
Rosse  Hall  instead.  Milnor  Hall, 
also  in  large  measure  destroyed  by 
fire,  had  been  rebuilt  and  incorpor- 
ated into  a  handsome  new  structure, 
with  an  eastern  wing  known  as 
Delano  Hall — built  with  money  con- 
tributed by  the  late  Columbus  De- 
lano, who  was  Secretary  of  the  In- 
terior under  President  Grant's  first 
administration, — as  well  for  the  use 
of  the  preparatory  or  grammar 
school  as  the  military  academy  es- 
tablished some  years  ago  in  connec- 
tion with  it.  And,  while  I  have  this 
paragraph  yet  in  hand,  the  sad  word 
comes  that  Milnor  Hall  and  Delano 
Hall  have  both  been  suddenly  de- 
stroyed by  fire  (February  24,  1906,) 
— a  terrible  calamity — with  loss  of 
several  young  lives  and  severe  in- 
juries to  other  students.  It  is  un- 
derstood that  these  buildings  will  be 
restored.  Besides  these,  other  at- 
73 


HOW  THE  BISHOP  BUILT 

tractive  and  beautiful  buildings  had 
been  added,  including  Hanna  Hall,  a 
gift  of  the  late  United  States  Sena- 
tor Mark  Hanna.  The  beautiful 
"Prayer  Cross"  also,  since  I  last 
visited  Gambier,  has  been  set  up, 
between  Hanna  Hall  and  the  old 
College.  On  this  Cross  is  carved  the 
inscription:  "On  this  spot  the  prayers 
of  Holy  Church  were  said  for  the 
first  time  upon  Gambier  Hill  the 
third  Sunday  after  Trinity,  A.  D. 
1826." 

But,  in  looking  back  across  the 
long,  misty,  many-arched  bridge  on 
which  I  have  been  realizing  the 
Vision  of  Mirza,  I  do  not  recognize 
anything  at  Gambier  half  so  dear  to 
my  memory  as  the  gray,  tall  spire 
far-off  among  distant  treetops,  where 
the  Bishop  Built  His  College  in  the 
Woods. 


74 


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